Musk to pour millions into GOP races as his extremist posts draw new scrutiny

[0:00] Elon Musk says he's going to try to buy another election. The former trillionaire will reportedly [0:04] spend another nine figures trying to elect Republicans in November, per the New York [0:08] Times. That's on top of the $260 million he spent getting Trump re-elected in 2024. [0:14] Of course, you can't go and say that the world's richest man is also one of the world's most [0:17] vociferous and vocal bigots. And if you're not paying attention, maybe it doesn't look like [0:22] he's spouting off absolutely vile, hateful stuff all the time. Lots of the tweets on the social [0:27] media platform he owns are like this, you have said the actual truth. True. Or simply yes, [0:32] you get a lot of that. But what's he posting that on? When he says you have said the actual truth, [0:37] he's responding to the claim, quote, Jewish communities have been pushing dialectical [0:41] hatred against whites. When he says true, he's promoting a post comparing the woke left to [0:47] Adolf Hitler. When he says yes, in its response to a meme from a racist movie with the text, [0:52] first the traitors, then the invaders, an apparent nod to themes found in the neo-Nazi screed The [0:58] Turner Diaries. Jamel Bowie is an opinion columnist from New York Times, where this week he asks, [1:03] why do we tolerate Elon Musk's racist commentary? Good question. And gee, he joins me now. Jamel, [1:08] I loved your column. And it asked a question that I'm wrestling with. What do you make of the [1:13] strangeness of how explicitly racist he is, how extreme he is, and sometimes, you know, sort of [1:21] toying with approval of violence and the sort of lack of a response to it? [1:27] Yeah, I honestly, you know, I asked the question in the column, but I myself am not entirely sure [1:33] that I have a satisfactory answer. It's very strange. As you point out, if you just scroll [1:40] through his replies and see what he is replying to, it is truly vile stuff. You mentioned the [1:48] Turner Diaries. I talked about it a bit in my column. The ideological, you know, miasma that [1:55] Musk has plugged into is very much from the same corners of the far right as the Turner Diaries. [2:02] And it's just right there. It's like, it's not hidden. It's right in front of you. And so why [2:07] is it that so many commentators and politicians and such just don't treat it as if it's a thing? [2:14] Perhaps it's because people think it's, you know, not appropriate to call this stuff out, [2:21] perhaps because they think it sounds like you're being hysterical if you call this stuff out. [2:27] But as I note in the column, you can make a good case that these views aren't just a quirk [2:35] that Musk has, but have like material effects in the world. The destruction of the United States [2:41] Agency for International Development last year by Musk. He bragged on his ex-accounts about putting [2:47] it in the wood chipper by Musk is estimated at this point to have claimed over up to 700,000 lives, [2:55] largely in places like sub-Saharan Africa. And to my mind, it's hard not to see a connection [3:02] between his enthusiasm for destroying programs like USAID and his views. [3:08] Yeah, let's play it. I mean, this is something that's been interesting. He [3:12] has been kind of very defensive about those estimates about what is done and not just estimates [3:19] reporting. I mean, multiple outlets, including New York Times has done great work on this and [3:23] actually going to places and like talking to a mom who lost her child because the maternal care she had [3:29] funded through AID was cut off as an example. He was recently interviewed by the editor-in-chief of [3:36] The Economist, who he later called an enemy of the West. And they have this exchange. Take a listen. [3:40] So you don't buy the idea that anybody, to put it really crudely and simply, any kid in Africa died [3:48] because of the suddenness with which... Zero. I just don't think that's right. There were huge [3:52] numbers of things shut down in Africa that were health-related. No, there were claims of this. [3:57] These claims are false. Zero died because of those. You see this sort of reality distortion field [4:06] there too, right? He's got his platform, he's got a trillion dollars, and he's just going to bully [4:11] his way through what the facts are. Right, right. He refuses to take responsibility [4:17] for anything. I mean, it's interesting, right? It's clear that according to his ideology, [4:26] he shouldn't be upset if all these people died. And yet he seems to know that if it is the case [4:33] that all these people died, it does reflect, to put it lightly, incredibly poorly on him and his legacy. [4:39] And it may even be the kind of thing that overshadows the legacy he wants to have, [4:44] which is of industrialist, technologist, person who's bringing humanity to the future. [4:50] If in fact what his legacy is, is the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions [4:58] of people, then it erases everything he's done prior and everything he does after. That's it. [5:03] That's what he's known for. [5:04] There's a strange asymmetry happening where you're watching this situation happen in which [5:11] every Democrat in the country has to answer for the views of the Democratic Social of America [5:16] platform created by a bunch of people whose names I don't even know that produce some documents on a [5:23] website. And everyone has to respond to it. Elon Musk is the single biggest Republican donor, [5:30] I think, at this point. I mean, he backed Donald Trump for $260 million, [5:33] is going to be tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars again. And somehow no one has to answer [5:39] for that. There's no like, but that, the most powerful person, the richest person in the world [5:44] spouting off things like first the traitors and the invaders was an image of a gun, meaning first [5:48] you shoot the leftists and then the immigrants. No, no one's got to, no Republican has got to answer [5:54] that apparently. [5:56] Part of me wonders if this isn't part of maybe a larger pathology in political media, [6:04] which is that Democrats haven't made hay of this, right? And so if Democrats don't make hay of it, [6:08] there's sort of this thing where, oh, well, we're not going to make hay of it on their behalf. People [6:12] have to make hay of it. And then Republicans will answer and you'll cover the back and forth. You'll [6:17] cover the controversy. Now, as I say this, I don't even find it that persuasive because again, I think [6:22] you're right. If there were a DSA member who said anything, even remotely, as reprehensible, [6:31] as Musk says on the regular, every Democrat in the country would have to answer whether or not [6:38] they agree with it. So I'm with you. I find this so strange and I don't have an adequate explanation [6:47] for it beyond sort of idle speculation, right? Like in terms of evidence for something, [6:53] I don't have a good explanation for it, but it is a phenomena. [6:57] Yeah. And to come back to where we started, I do think part of it is the weirdness of [7:02] the replies in the context of sometimes very sort of a little bit of strain, like impenetrable memes. [7:10] So like that image of Armie Hanner, like you have to know the movie and the movie's context is created [7:14] by like conservatives. And it was his sort of his post cancellation thing. And it's about an invasion, [7:19] the immigrants and a sort of vigilante fantasy. And a lot, I will say that a lot of his stuff is, [7:24] yes, exactly. So you've said the truth in response to like fairly convoluted right-wing memes. And I [7:31] do think that's a little bit what we're showing right now. That's a little bit of what is insulating [7:36] them. But your column, everyone should go check that out. Jamel Bowie, as always a pleasure, sir. [7:40] Thank you. [7:41] Thank you.